


Amidst the Skyfish

by cyberapocalypse



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Apocalypse, Asexual Character, Blogging, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Cyberpunk, I Tried, I'm Bad At Tagging, I'm Sorry, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Character of Color, LGBTQ Female Character, My First AO3 Post, Post-Apocalypse, The Author Regrets Everything, The Author Regrets Nothing, World Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:08:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28430661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyberapocalypse/pseuds/cyberapocalypse
Summary: “even though the place and time may change the people never do”“centuries passed, civilisations rose and fell, in rhythmic harmony with the pattern of history”“and now we've ended up here, with a multitude of smaller planets entangled within one another's web of gravity”—Just a story about a post apocalyptic world(s) featuring a very tired student just trying (and failing) to live their life.
Kudos: 1





	Amidst the Skyfish

**Author's Note:**

> My Tumblr: aesthetics-and-chillxxx  
> Link to my Tumblr: https://aesthetics-and-chillxxx.tumblr.com
> 
> (The tags are kinda all over the place and generally just rubbish, so sorry about that).
> 
> I deliberately didn't give my character a name or specify gender or anything so that I could leave that to the readers imagination (and perhaps prevent dysphoria for anyone). 
> 
> And the tags are to paint a picture of an inclusive world, bc once you've faced the literal apocalypse it's kinda pointless to give a shit about looks/orientation/gender/etc.

The year was 2700AD and for all the advancements to technology humans were still a fairly new species, compared to the eons of time that living organisms had been around, with limited knowledge. They were nothing in comparison to the transcendent force that is nature. This being so, when it came to light that the world was on course to be destroyed they had little choice but to accept their fate; the asteroid that was on course to hit the earth would be the cause of the fall of the human race. 

Ironically whilst the asteroid was blamed for the end of the world by people of the time, when people from later time periods look back they can see that it was in fact humans that brought about the apocalypse. The knowledge of impending doom simply spurred the events of the apocalypse into motion. Had human nature not been what it is doomsday may not have happened for a few centuries afterwards.

“There's something about the inevitable destruction of the world that strikes desperation into the hearts of man.” - unknown pg 288 History VII 

—

A sigh resounded, the sound amplified by the heavy silence that weighed down the room. The faint sounds of pencils scratching could be heard if one listened hard enough but given the amount of focus all students had for their own paper it's doubtful that they heard anything at all. All students, except one. 

A single student had their pencil resting motionlessly on the old, wooden desk whilst they stared off into the distance in such a way that they would be able to see out of the single window the room had. Every so often the student would blink in rhythmic harmony with the butterfly that would flit across the window causing a sharp shadow to fall directly onto their paper.

The halfway warning was given by someone at the front, the teacher most likely, and the teen's eyes flickered closed for a moment before they picked up their pencil.

—

The knowledge that time was limited clouded the minds of many people with a primal sense of fear and the world descended into pure chaos, marking the year 2700AD when the apocalypse began.

To realise how the real cause of the apocalypse beginning so early was down to the humans, one must understand that there are certain things that make humans human. Perhaps the most prominent of these things is the presence of emotions. Desperation and anxiety, polar opposites in a way, were the main emotions being felt by people at the time.

Anxiety preys on uncertainty and with the end of the world came a huge uncertainty:

Where does one go when they die?

The question loomed over the heads of the people, the weight of the possible answers crushing their hearts almost like a premature death.

A tirade of voices from all around the world could be heard following the announcement of their predicted death, and for once it seemed the entire world was in agreement about something. 

Whispers carried through the grass, the soft winds of mother nature singing reassurances to her kingdom. To the parents consoling their children, with strained voices and shaking hands. To the professors whose machines could do nothing to safe even a single life from the oncoming disaster. To the lonely people who didn't have anyone besides the lullaby of the wind to soothe their fears.

Whilst desperation is fueled by the certainty that something negative is going to happen.

With the end of the world looming in the distance people became desperate to experience all they wanted to, to achieve their life aspirations before it was too late.

At first services overloaded with the influx of people suddenly demanding to try doing anything. People with dreams such as finally going skydiving, perhaps learning to draw, even simply beating their social anxiety and eating out at a restaurant flooded the industries. All too soon though this stopped happening and everything began to lose their value.

And that's when the real chaos bloomed.

People would just walk into shops and take whatever they wanted because what did a little bit of food matter when the world was ending? Crime rates skyrocketed, people stopped working, all within a couple of years the fragile base of social ideals on which civilization was built gave out and society completely collapsed.

Humanity had reverted back to its primal stages of kill or be killed. 

This brings us back to another thing that makes humans human: the presence of greed. Certain groups monopolised the essentials such as food and water out of greed, wanting to control the masses. This led to the most destructive, large scale war the world had and will ever see. 

Seeing as people had quit their jobs and had therefore left a lack of soldiers available to fight in the aforementioned war, countries chose to resort to nuclear weapons.

Because, of course, the middle of the apocalypse is a good time to have a war–

—

There was a brief pause, as if the mind was waiting for the body to learn what it already knew, before lead dragged itself across the page crossing out the last line.

The student gave a huff that somehow held the feeling that although they knew this paper was not the place to start going off on a rant orientated tangent, they still wished to write said rant and would not feel at ease until they did so.

After all, the gruesome artwork they had drawn in a rare moment of artistic inspiration didn't do the cause justice by themselves.

—

The destruction that followed was devastating. Within the decade the world had almost completely been reduced to rubble. People no longer had the luxury of hoarding food because there was no food to hoard. Resources were dangerously low and people had begun to die of radiation exposure.

Where people once would have been relaxing by sitting down in the grass, passing time by watching tv and just going to the store whenever they needed something; they were now sitting atop the ruins of fallen houses surveying the damage done to their former homes, clinging to their gas masks as if they were lifelines and digging through fallen shop aisles to try and find food.

Then, in 2706AD the event that would bring about the end of the apocalypse and the world as it once was occurred. As previously mentioned humans had limited knowledge at the time meaning that there was no possible way for them to know that the specific type of radiation in one of their bombs would react with a chemical in the earth's surface. The resulting explosion killed all human life on the planet within minutes.

—

A sudden darkness obscured the vision of one of students, momentarily inciting mild vertigo. Once their balance had been restored they looked down at their paper to find the silhouette of a bee casting it's shadow down onto it. The teen looked up at the docile creature hovering above their head and reached up to stroke it's fuzz. Using both hands the teen guided the bee down to the desk, not minding the fact that it took up an extremely large amount of space, and continued petting it. 

Catching the falling papers before they could hit the ground, the teen maneuvered their stuff around the fuzzball of a bee and sounds of pencil scratches filled the corner of the room once again.

Unbeknownst to most humans in the vicinity a Flizard was lazily flying through the clearing eyeing its current prey – a five year old child. With practiced agility the creature flew past the child clawing at their ice cream and flying away with it in one fluid motion. The sound of the child's distressed wails and the mother's fruitless attempts to calm the the toddler down filled the air for metres to come.

For the Flizard the sound of the child crying; the pencil scratching against paper; the teacher calling out the twenty minute warning; the man on the phone hurrying out of the school building worry painted across his face; the kids in the park singing their hearts out to old earth music; the hum of the hover ambulance landing beside an unconscious lady; the cacophony of music radiating from the planet merged.

The world tilted on its axis and decayed.

As if to prove that all of the creature kingdom is united, the bee on the desk a short ways away from where the Flizard lay rolled onto the floor landing with a soft whump.

The student’s pencil continued its rhythmic course.

—

However humans are nothing if not complex creatures and in a frankly incredible feat of science the human race rose again. Through years of evolution the human species once again walked the land.

Though dissimilar to the former world, our current world is made up for multiple different dwarf planets. 

See, unlike previous asteroid collisions the collision of c3500 managed to break the earth apart forming multiple different dwarf planets. (Whilst the nuclear explosion was the event responsible for ending the human race however the collision that was due to hit the earth was what caused it to fracture). These dwarf planets pulled each other into their respective gravitational fields and eventually formed their own mini solar system. With time the planets became habitable again and life began anew.

Centuries passed; civilisations rose and fell in rhythmic harmony with the pattern of history. Society continued to evolve, rebuilding itself from ruin slowly. 

Of course, not all planets fared the same.

True to human nature greed still existed and as the time passed the power imbalance only served to get more prominent. It seems that even though the place and time may change, the people never do. Some planets are still inhabitable due to lack of care whilst others have advanced leaps and bounds, going beyond the scopes of the technology that the previous human civilization had obtained.

Ways of interplanetary travel have been developed but it is not yet available for the public, it is limited to certain individuals, and interplanetary WiFi has also become available.

In addition to this there are many more differences between this current world and the former earth, such as the different species of animals. The insects have evolved to be a lot bigger and there are also a lot of new species that didn't exist before, including the Skyfish or Floaters. 

The new age of human civilization has advanced much more than old age and learnt how to better co-exist with their surroundings showing the evolutionary progress made in comparison to the original human race.

—

Huffing a sigh the student occupying the corner seat of the room let their pencil roll off the table and onto the floor. That may have just been one of the worst assignments they had ever done. Granted, that was because they deliberately put absolutely no effort into it at all and began mindlessly rambling halfway through but the point still stands.

Lost somewhere within the depths of their own mind, in the middle of debating the merits of just handing in a completely plain piece of paper, the screech of metal against the wooden floor boards startled them from their thoughts. 

The students around them were beginning to pack up.

Whoops, it looked like they had once again gotten too trapped inside their own head – they hadn't even heard the teacher call out the end of the exam.

Muttering a quick ‘screw it’ under their breath they crammed their actual test into their bag, scrawling their name onto one of the spare papers and putting that into the box instead hastily walking out to prevent the teacher from calling them back to discuss why they had written nothing.

The teen supposed it didn't matter that they had handed in blank paper anyway, they had no desire of going into academics and most certainly didn't need to graduate from this school. Why it was mandatory to attend regulation schooling even when students were already attending specialist academies, they would never know. 

Besides having to stay after class would've been bothersome seeing as they wanted to get home as soon as possible and sleep – living could be so tiring sometimes.

Lazily raising a hand the student made their way out of the school building and moved to flag down a private hover train. Not unlike the big cities from the old earth the city on planet Cyber thrummed with life. Music bounced off the walls of towering skyscrapers whilst half broken neon signs assaulted the eyes. 

That seemed to be an unspoken rule on Cyber, that every neon sign had to have at least one broken letter. No-one seemed to have any idea where the tradition came from though, maybe old earth?

The familiar whir of a landing hover train filled the clearing and the teen lurched forward grabbing the rail and pulling themselves on and sliding into the backseats. The hover from school back to their building was pretty long even with the speed of the new xv hover models so they tapped on the glass to choose some music to relax to during the journey.

Looking down at the flashing lights and flying contractions the teen knew so well they couldn't help but appreciate the beauty of the Cyber planet once again. There was never any rain; for that would surely ruin the technology that seemed to give the city it's life. The building extended upwards into the cloud for miles fading off into a directionless, light illuminated mist cloud. The soft hum of the devices harmonizing and reverberating off the walls in a familiar, comforting manner whilst the occasional bee flew past the window of the hover train.

The hover train dropped down into the nearby station and the teen jumped off, clutching their headband so it didn't fly away like last time. There's a potential idea for an invention, they mused to themselves as they started home, headbands that could withstand hover train winds.

Walking home was quite peaceful as the streets were pretty vacant that day, but the teen supposed they were never really busy near their house anyway. 

Besides the student there was no one else out except a lone elderly man who was walking down the street across from them. As they passed the teen caught sight of the badge pinned to the inside of their coat. 

A retired Trader, they thought in wonderment.

Traders were the people who were responsible for moving goods between planets, such as fly boating water to the desert planet or taking underground minerals to the higher up places. They were part of the select few that got to experience interplanetary travelling, along with Trader trainees and Medics. 

Seeing as being a Trader involves a lot travelling all Trader trainees have to have at least a year of travelling experience to get used to different terrains and so we know how to use and pack travelling equipment.

The teen's mind flashed back to the speech that their specialist academy for aspiring Traders had given stating students would all get their license allowing them to experience interplanetary travel; and they briefly filled with joy.

However the elation was short lived as they quickly remembered that that day was still two whole weeks away. With their good mood immediately dissipated, the tiredness from earlier returned in full force.

Stepping up to their front door the teen held their wrist up to the door letting it swing open before going inside and unceremoniously flopping onto the floor.

“I'm home,” they whispered to the empty house, as if the walls would start talking and say something back and whilst the answering silence was something they had expected, it still managed to send a twinge of hurt through the teen's heart everytime. 

Crawling back to their bedroom took effort (it's only with a good few hours of hindsight that they would realise they owned hoverboards perfectly capable of carrying a person) and by the time they had reached the bed they were panting for breath. They faceplanted straight ontop of the covers preparing to take a long nap, simultaneously sending more than a few things tumbling down off their desk in the process.

Among those things was one (1) sleeping Flizard which immediately began to screech the moment it hit the floor, and start flying around the room tearing apart everything within its reach.

A piece of paper, gratuitously adorned with pictures that outlined the stupidity with which the people of old earth acted when they launched the war, fluttered to the floor in a multitude of different pieces.

“Oh n– no my house, I don't have money to fix it again, stop!”

With every beat of the Flizards translucent wings the house got closer and closer to looking like it had been the victim of a hurricane and with a resigned acceptance, the type worn by people who knew it was pointless to try and do anything but accept their circumstances, the teen idly noted a mirror flying out of the kitchen window.

Yeah, sleep looked like it was gonna be out of the question for a good few more hours.

The teen wanted to cry, but all that they could do was watch as their house was destroyed for the second time that week.

‘Dear god, why have you forsaken me.’

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the cyberpunk/apocalyptic story I'm doing on Tumblr. This story is being cross-posted on Tumblr and all aesthetics/videos/art accompanying the story can be found there so please check my Tumblr out, thanks. 
> 
> My Tumblr: aesthetics-and-chillxxx
> 
> Thanks for reading •^-^° (comment feedback pls)
> 
> (btw if it wasn't clear parts of the story are written by the student).


End file.
